How Tapping a Female Writer for the Harley Quinn Movie Changes 'Everything'

According to Christina Hodson, who has been tapped to write the script for Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn spinoff, “Birds of Prey,” having a woman writing the movie changes everything for the supervillain.

“Harley is such a complicated character, she was created by a man and I think he did an amazing job with her, but she is flawed, complicated, has so many different angles,” Hodson told Variety at the Future of Film Is Female discussion at our Comic-Con Studio.

Hodson said she hates when Quinn gets written as just a plus-one character for Joker, and is looking to write her as her own person in the upcoming film.

“She was born as Joker’s girlfriend and Joker’s love interest,” Hodson, who also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming “Transformers” spinoff, “Bumblebee,” said. “And she’s so much more than that, so I’m excited to see her as her own person.”

Some of this year’s Academy Award nominees, including Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”), Rachel Weisz (“The Favourite”), Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), and director Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) talk about the last time they broke down and cried at the movies.

Alfonso Cuarón, in addition to serving as writer, director, and producer, was also the DP on best picture nominee “Roma.” For Variety‘s Artisans series, he explained why he knew the movie couldn’t be “a nostalgic, old-school black and white.”

“I obviously misspoke in that situation,” Rebel Wilson said at the premiere of “Isn’t It Romantic,” acknowledging her recent Twitter gaffe in which she claimed to be the first plus-size woman to star in a romantic comedy. “I was so sincerely sorry for doing so because my intention was never to offend anyone. It was [...]